


Tiny Lights

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Pinprick moments of love and care between the prince and his beloved adviser. [for #ignoctweek]





	1. little accidents

Noctis hissed and flinched away, biting his lip and apologizing as he forced his wrist back into Iggy’s hands. Ignis didn’t even have to say anything. He pitched a placid look up at the Prince, steeled with an omnipresent “I told you so.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he soothed instead, cradling the bruised flesh. “Where exactly does it hurt?”

“I told you, it doesn’t,” Noctis grumbled, all evidence to the contrary.

His pride hurt worse than his wrist did. All those years of learning the lessons to walk right, talk right, dance right, and to always know where to place his feet around the Royal Court, and it all came undone on one stupid stair, conspiring with his own klutziness to betray his dignity.

“And I told you that you should have let me help you with those boxes,” Ignis countered. He examined the injury for another moment before clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Hold that up while I get some ice.”

Noctis held his wrist aloft while Ignis retreated to the kitchen, long, crisp strides hastening him to the freezer. Noctis glared at his back for the mild scolding, but his gaze weakened as he watched the familiar blocks of worry compress around Iggy’s spine. Ignis always stood so straight and symmetrical that it was often hard to tell if he was stressed or just standing, but somehow, Noctis knew. It was more of a tone than a tell; an intuition he’d adapted from Ignis himself by observation alone. It was Iggy’s job to know what Noctis needed before even he did. And through that devout attention, he’d learned to see the same in Ignis, too.

He was quiet while Ignis worked, gently curling a bag of ice around the afflicted area. The cold was a shock to his angry-hot skin, but it numbed the angrier ache along the bone, the sting comforted by Iggy’s careful touch. His eyes were on his work while Noct’s were on him, hating that he was the cause for the tense planes of his shoulders. He wanted to say he was sorry, but he wasn’t sure what for. Sorry for wanting to take some of the load off of Ignis by bringing up a few boxes himself. Sorry for not asking for help now that he’d worried Ignis more than he’d helped him with his good intentions.

But an apology now would just steep the guilt for a dumb accident even deeper on either side. It always did. Noctis blamed himself for not being smart enough to keep himself from getting hurt. Ignis blamed himself for not being fast enough to keep Noct from getting hurt. Apologies never helped either of them. So instead, Noctis looked around the apartment and laughed.

“Well, nothing christens a new apartment quite like a little bloodshed, right?”

Ignis snorted and shook his head, trying very hard not to smile. His fingers squeezed a little bit around Noct’s wrist. “Wouldn’t really be ours without an accident now, would it?”

—

Noctis got the chance to make it up to him a month or two after settling into the new apartment, well after the sprained wrist was healed up and forgotten to the catalogue of accidental injury.

It was the dead of winter, Ignis was sick and furious with himself for being so. Doctors made the worst patients, and though Ignis didn’t have a medical degree, Noctis was fully subscribing to that theory, regardless. He knew that Ignis was sick well before even he did. Lying awake at three in the morning, staring into space after being thrown from sleep by a nightmare, he heard Ignis cough a whole of _once_ and knew that he’d come down with something. Noctis tried to stay awake to get ahead of him, be ready at six o’ clock for Ignis to glide out of bed and into his routine, pretending like nothing was wrong. But sleep reclaimed him like the traitor he really didn’t need it to be today, and by the time he got out of bed, Ignis was dressed and making breakfast and red-eyed with a head-cold through it all.

“Sit,” Noctis ordered, abusing his authority for Iggy’s own good.

He got a fuzzy glare in response, aimed at a point just over Noct’s shoulder as if that was where his face was. He knew for sure then that he had to really put some force behind the “I’m the Prince, do what I say” card.

“ _Sit_ ,” he said again, firmer this time and nudging Ignis by the shoulders to steer him onto the living room couch. “I hate to be the one to tell you this Specs, but you’re human. Germs happen.”

“I’m not putting off a whole day and admitting defeat to these little shits.”

Noctis bit down on his lip, failing to keep the smile off of his face. He could always tell something was wrong when Ignis started cursing. Profanity was always so much funnier coming off of that cultured voice because it sounded so out of place. Appropriate for the congested slur of syllables, but still so unlike Ignis.

“Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away, Specs.” He dragged the thick blanket draped along the back of the couch over Iggy’s shoulders.

“But it gets the daily chores done,” Ignis muttered.

“They’ll get done without you pretending like you’re not going to pass out over a lit stove.”

Ignis narrowed a glance at him, the pale green-blue of his eyes as foggy as an autumn sea behind his glasses. He stared at Noctis for a long time, as if he couldn’t quite equate the implication that the Prince himself would pick up the work-load while he could not.

“I promise not to burn the apartment down,” Noctis assured him, reaching for the remote and turning on the TV. “Just relax, find something to watch, and I’ll make you some soup or something.”

“‘Or something is not a meal, Noct.”

“Would you like some burn marks on the walls instead?”

Ignis tried to glare at him for the threat, but it carried over as more of a pout. One that Noctis couldn’t help himself but to smile at.

“It’s just tea and soup, Specs,” he said, stretching up to push a kiss against his temple. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”


	2. way to the heart

Most of Iggy’s favorites were above Noct’s skill level – and didn’t classify as soup. It took a lot of Moogle searching and staring into the refrigerator at the ingredients they had on hand before he finally decided that he could _probably_ prepare quillhorn soup without putting every malpractice suit in history to shame. Or blowing his trust fund on tipping the poison control unit.

They had leftover daggerquill breasts and a few strips of dualhorn steak from dinners earlier in the week. And plenty of produce that Noct’s first instinct was to avoid, but he braved for the sake of his ailing partner. Wild onions, a little bit of celery, and lots of herbs. It was the most basic quillhorn soup recipe he could find, not Iggy’s customized and homemade version. But he wasn’t pretending to be Ignis today. He was just pretending he was a version of Noctis that knew what he was doing.

“The common cold is not worth all of that trouble, Noct.”

Ignis sniffled from his seat on the couch, blearily blinking after each of Noct’s actions. Balancing his phone in one hand with the instructions illuminated across the screen, Noctis fished through the cupboards for an appropriately sized pot.

“It’s not trouble, it’s classic!” he insisted, hefting the pot onto a burner and lighting the flame to medium heat. “Quillhorn soup for the common cold on a chill winter’s day. If it’s not successful, at least it’ll be entertaining.”

“You have more pressing matters to attend to than waiting on me all day.”

“Not getting to any ‘pressing matters’ in that, Specs.”

He waved his phone at the blur of white and gray outside the windows. True-to-form snowstorms were uncommon over Insomnia. He had no idea if it had anything to do with the Wall or if it was just as simple a matter as geography. The most snow they got was a light dusting, the occasional sleet, never any hail. Actual snow, heavy white flakes that gathered on concrete to construct walls of their own and chase the city’s citizens back into the warmth of their homes, happened maybe once every two years if they were lucky. Shiva’s spirit couldn’t have had better timing today.

Ignis opened his mouth to protest again, but Noctis was already dropping a slab of butter into the pot and wagging the knife at him. “I know it’s the cough medicine giving you temporary amnesia, otherwise you’d remember that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and not getting a different result.”

Ignis glared at him, but denied Noctis his endeavor no longer. The weather report chatted mutely on the TV, abandoned by Ignis in favor of watching Noctis work. It was a little intimidating, being under the scrutinizing eye of the master chef himself. Noctis had hoped mindless television might distract him, maybe even put him back to sleep so he could make the dozens of mistakes he expected he would make and pretend that he didn’t make a single one by the time Ignis woke up again and he had a perfectly decent soup ready for him.

“Do not Iron Shelf Insomnia me,” he warned, glancing between the recipe on his phone and the slow chop of the onion beneath his hands.

“Just making sure you’re exercising basic kitchen safety rules,” Ignis said, leaning a heavy head against his hand.

“I said I wouldn’t set the place on fire and I meant it. And we work with knives way more dangerous than this toothpick every day, Specs.”

He indicated the cutting knife, lifting it briefly before setting it back to its task. Ignis sneezed, then lapsed into silence. The staring was still unnerving for the first few minutes of sautéing the onion and celery in the melted butter. In the five minutes it took for the veggies to sauté, the idea of scrutiny simmered down to the thrill of having an audience.

His focus sharpened the longer he set about the soup, chopping up the meat components as fine as he could while the veggies finished sautéing. He measured out the instructed amount of daggerquill broth to add to the pot before adding the breasts and steak strips. He took his time, carefully making sure he followed the recipe with utter exactness, eyes flitting between the phone screen and the ingredient he set about chopping. A few handfuls of the necessary herbs into the pot and it was ready to simmer for twenty minutes.

“Soon, we’ll have soup,” he sighed in relief when he was done, smiling with pride over at Ignis.

He was surprised that he was still awake, thinking the monotony of chopping and stirring would lull him to sleep for sure. But he smiled back at him, dopey on drugs and stuffed sinuses.

“I wish that I could smell it,” he said, sniffling. “I’m sure it smells divine.”

“Hopefully, it’ll taste as good as it smells.”

Noctis cleaned off the counter, dusting errant bits of herbs into the garbage and tossing the utensils he’d used into the sink. He paused, brow furrowing at the stove before he remembered that he’d promised tea. He hurried to fill the pot and set it to boil. The soup he couldn’t be certain of being a success, but tea, tea he was good at. Tea he could do without messing it up.

“Peppermint,” he told Ignis as he delivered a steaming cup into his hands a few minutes later. “Nice and chill.”

“I’m starting to like this restaurant,” Ignis hummed, curling his fingers around the cup.

“Hold off on the review until you taste the food.”

“I’m certain it will be perfect, Noct.”

He smiled, soft and oddly serene for a man who had just been cursing the gods for their ill favor on him not that long ago. It filled Noctis with a new confidence for his cooking. Enough that his hands didn’t shake with the nerves that were turning his stomach as he ladled the soup into a bowl when the timer buzzed. He settled onto the couch next to Ignis and presented the mad science experiment.

“It’s a little, err, heartier than your version, I think.”

“Is that because you put your heart into it?”

Noctis groaned while Ignis laughed, a wet bounce of a sound in his clogged throat. He must be feeling better already if he could make groan-worthy puns like that. Noctis let him have that one with a degree less of eye-rolling than usual, more anxious to hear the verdict on his cooking. He did his best not to appear nervous, forcing himself to sit back on the couch and watch the TV instead of wringing his phone in his hands and staring at Ignis until he spoke. He glanced over to follow the quiet slurp of broth past Iggy’s lips and waited.

“For your first unchaperoned soup? It’s excellent, Noct.”

“You’re just saying that because you can’t taste it, you liar,” Noctis laughed.

“I never lie about good food.”

“Just bad food.”

Ignis bumped his shoulder into his in a silent demand to shut up and take the compliment. Noctis grinned, sidling a little closer to warm his side beneath the thick blanket. Ignis finished the soup to the last drop. So, it must have been good.


End file.
